#FF00AA

@web@

Vox’s Question of the Day. Shit! I’ve had this feature on my Gayattitude to-do list for a year or two now, and when I finally get around to doing it everybody’ll think I lifted it from Vox!

 

@web@

Google launching a web-based Excel killer is a bit of a WTF in its own right (it just looks like Google has one articulated thought — conquer all! but not being too evil, if possible, but conquer all! — but no coherent, coordinated strategy beyond releasing bits of software at random until the whole market’s covered), but this one looks interesting:

There is also a marked emphasis on multi-user editing. Two or more users can view and edit a document at the same time. Users can be invited to view or edit a document, and Google Chat has been integrated into the application so that multiple users can offer input during the work session. When you’re done, spreadsheets can be exported as HTML, XLS, or CSV.

Several people simultaneously editing a spreadsheet while discussing the numbers and results in a chat window? Wow. I’m pretty sure if I had any use whatsoever for a spreadsheet program I’d be all over this. (Whereas I’m actually not going to try and sign up for the beta, because, well, some people need it more than I do.)

 

@apple@

Google Video Player for Mac. Cool. Well, it would be, if there were anything of interest on Google Video. (Or maybe there is, and I just don’t know? Considering that Google’s player doesn’t allow you to browse, sending you back to the inhospitable website instead, I probably won’t know any time soon.)

 

@apple@

Sometimes you wonder why you read the crap you read. Apple releases a technote acknowledging an occasional shipping fluke in MacBooks, and half the Apple news sites sport titles along the lines of “Overheating MacBooks were only about some leftover plastic wrapping”. Even though anyone with half a brain and a passing interest in Apple news already knows that most discussions about MacBook temperatures start with “Yeah I know about the plastic film and I checked for it and there wasn’t any”.

Or maybe it’s just anyone spending all day reading tech news sites, like me — but even then, you might expect people writing on specialized blogs to actually have an interest in what they’re writing about, and be reading other sites. Or, then again, you might not. Why would ‘pro’ bloggers be any more pro than MSM journalists?

 

@apple@

Edgies: sticky notes as screen edge tabs. Drag a text snippet (including images, and links) to an edge of the screen and it becomes a tab note; with a right-click you can even insert check boxes to manage a quick to-do list. Well thought-out.

 

@music@

iPod U2 returns. Things I don’t get: if it’s a special edition, why is it the 30GB model (when the black MacBook is the top of the line); do they really know what a ‘special edition’ is (it’s not so special if it’s introducd again on the new iPod lineup); if they’re going to make special iPods, why U2, and why so ugly (the rumored all-pink Madonna iPod would make so much more sense, being all pink — or even, staying with Bono, the all-red iPod against AIDS); and, really, why so ugly, why U2, and why 30GB?

Oh no, it’s back!

 

@misc@

Plug-in posters. Gimmicky, but in a fun way.

 

@windows@

Samsung Q1 UMPC Hands-On. In short: it’s mostly crap, except as a portable TV set (I seem to recall the Korean version integrating a tuner); gotta love how the virtual keyboard just doesn’t work in portrait mode.

 

@misc@

Fooling fingerprint detectors with a fingerprint photograph, gummi bears and a blank circuit board [via]. In other words, if you’re trusting anything to fingerprint recognition, you should wear gloves at all times so nobody can lift your prints. Yeah, that’ll work.